It’s official: Chris Matthews is a loathsome douchebag

Let’s be clear, I’ve always thought Chris Matthews was a douchebag. I’ve never loathed him to the extent that some wise folks like Digby have, but I’ve been acutely aware of his spittle-flecked douchebaggery. However, I always thought him to be, at worst, a goofy douchebag. But during this primary season this bleach-drenched, jabbering man-child has attained the mantle of 100% official loathsome douchebag. He’s exhibiting a level of off-the-rails batshit crazy that’s normally reserved for the likes of the Michael Savages of the world. I sincerely believe that Matthews has gone off the deep end—way off—and MSNBC should consider sharply yanking his leash or perhaps yanking him off the air and sending him away to some remote island where he can just mindlessly bark at palm trees all day while attendants cautiously swipe at his quivering, wet chin with washcloths. He’s become a mockery. A buffoon. A fucktard. One of the biggest blights on American politics. A loathsome douchebag.

Last night after an evening of Matthews directing an utterly bizarre level of vitriol at the Clintons, Keith Olbermann, his co-host in NH primary coverage, had to pry Tom Delay’s cock out of Matthews mouth (I wish I could find a video of the tongue bath Matthews gave Delay) right before Matthews turned into a complete lunatic at the expense of Dee Dee Myers, Bill Clinton’s former press secretary:

Sure, Myers was spinning quite a bit—that’s what politicians do—but so was Delay and Matthews gave him a free pass. Witness how angry Matthews is at Myers (and the Clintons). Look at his face. Listen to his voice. Look into his eyes. We’re talking “bring in the guys with the white coats” behavior here, not just a hardballer tunneling to truthiness. An absolute train wreck that you don’t want to rubberneck. A complete and total embarrassment.

As the evening wore on and Matthews realized that Hillary and Bill had schooled the pundits (and Matthews, in particular), you could actually see this drooling simpleton deflate like a 99-cent-store birthday balloon. He became virtually (and thankfully) non-existent, nearly transforming into a wisp of vapor after Tom Brokaw took some not-so-subtle jabs at him following Hillary’s victory speech. And to put the icing on the cake, Rachel Maddow took out a butter knife, missed the cake completely and jabbed it into Matthew’s turkey gobble:

Pat, I will tell you that on the influential-influential, perhaps, on the left-website Talking Points Memo today, you want to know who they’re blaming for women voters breaking for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, who they’re blaming for this late showing and a big vote for Hillary Clinton? They’re blaming Chris Matthews. People are citing specifically Chris-not only for his own views but also for…as symbol of what the mainstream media has done to Hillary Clinton.

And then Chris Matthews said, I shit you not:

My influence over American politics looms over the people. I’m overwhelmed myself.

Except, you loathsome douchebag, you’re too caught up in your own sputtering bullshit to realize that yesterday people weren’t just voting for Hillary, they were also voting against you having any influence over American politics going forward. You’ve become a festering polyp on the electoral process and yesterday thoroughly disgusted voters finally found the scalpel.

(I dedicate this post to my wonderful wife Chris for not throwing our nightstand lamp at the television last night.)

RELATED: Here’s a theory in the comments section at Matt Y’s place as to why Obama lost so many indie voters to McCain that I haven’t seen bandied about yet and, as a bonus, it contains the word “douchebag”!

GOOD CHRIST: The Mount Blogmore post linked above doesn’t fully capture the totally loathsome douchebaggery Matthews was exhibiting this morning, post-humiliation. You really have to see this. They need to start padding the walls of MSNBC’s studios if they’re going to keep this demented gasbag on the air. (via Atrios)

FINALLY (1/11/08): I wasn’t going to update this post, but it’s still getting a lot of traffic and I just found this on YouTube. It’s too bizzare not to share. Scroll to the 1:25 mark in the video or read the transcript below.

CHUCK TODD, NBC POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, you know, in talking with a lot of people that are involved with the Clinton campaign but don‘t get to help make the decisions, the fear is they don‘t have a plan B. The fear is that they had just one plan, inevitability and the hope that being the first woman president would be the change, that they could be the movement candidate.

And you know, the hard part of this is, is I think at the very beginning, they thought they had sort of two angles at this. They had the woman thing and they had the experience, inevitability factor.

MATTHEWS: Right.

TODD: And somehow, they lost both of them. And that‘s what‘s hard here, is that, you know, if one was plan 1A and plan 1B, there‘s no plan 1C right now.

I mean, I‘m hearing all sorts of things. Some folks that could get drawn into the campaign are telling me that the most likely scenario is that they‘ll skip the next two states and basically say, OK, let‘s make this a referendum on Obama as the nominee on February 5. I‘ll—you know, that she may—you know, I‘ll drop out after February 5, if I don‘t get this nomination, but you‘ve got to know, those February 5 states, that that‘s what you‘re voting for. You‘re voting to end it. You‘re voting for Obama as the nominee. And maybe that‘ll sort of jump start things. We‘ll see.

MATTHEWS: And it reminds me of what the Egyptian soldiers said after losing the Six-Day War to Israel: Our strategy was to rape all the women and kill all the men.

That‘s not very good strategy when you are in retreat.

That exceedingly warped analogy is courteous of “the most important political pundit out there,” as our naive Canadian friend Jeff branded him down below in the comments.